Passion for Fashion

I recently did an interview with Miss Rachel Kossman, a student at Northeastern University, my old stomping grounds. Rachel was super sweet and I was more than happy to help her out with her project on social media today and what it can do to benefit a company.  We did the interview at the South End Buttery and she has come out with the finished product. Check out her site at Rachel's Fashion Passion. Here is a peek at her article:

THE BOSTON FASHION BLOGGING SCENE by RACHEL KOSSMAN 

In this day and age, everybody has an opinion. And now more than ever, it’s incredibly easy to share that opinion with the world. From blogging platforms like Blogger and WordPress to social media and networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, it seems like everyone has a voice. And in a world with a fiercely competitive fashion industry, young hopefuls desperately trying to break their way into the industry have an easy way to start: blogging.

Sarah McManus fits that mold perfectly. A 2005 Northeastern graduate, Sarah is a fashion stylist and blogger who started her own site, ShopSarahMac.com last summer.  Although she had been working privately as a fashion consultant for a number of years, she found that moving to the internet really helped her business. Within a week of posting the site, she already had a new client. “People have really been responsive,” said Sarah of her site. “It just picked up sort of a fanbase. I didnt even think I was a good writer or anything but people really started to like it.”

Sarah writes a weekly “Boston Trends” column for the Examiner and is a contributing writer for AnyWearGirl and ShopItToMe. Sarah began writing for ShopItToMe from a connection she made through her Twitter. Although she never saw herself as a “twitter-er” she’s found it is an amazing connection in the fashion world. “I just found a lot of fashion people putting up links to their posts. I found that when you do those things people really go to the page and really look at it. you meet the same people in your circle. I’ve met so many people in Boston that I didn’t know before.” 
A few weeks ago, Sarah went on what she describes as a “first date” with a Boston Herald writer that she met on Twitter. Although it was kind of awkward, she said it’s those connections that make utilizing social networking sites completely worthwhile.“ It really does make a difference. You can see who works where and get in with them that way. You just meet the same sort of people and then once you start talking it’s ‘Hey want to do a shoot?’, or ‘Do you want to be part of this style Boston thing?’ Staying in touch with those people is definitely a good idea and that’s how you can is by using Facebook and Twitter. It just seems easier now than anything else.”

Kara Weymouth is another Boston fashion blogger who utilizes social media. She has been blogging and tweeting under the name Bostonoista since she graduated from Emmanuel College in 2007. “Twitter and Facebook are definitely I think amazing tools if used in the right ways. It’s really unbelievable what you can do with that and I definitely have made contacts that way, in terms of editors and writing and it definitely is a great tool,” she explained.

Kara is currently working full time as a Kindergarten teacher. Although she hopes to one day break into the fashion industry, she isn’t quite ready to give up a steady paycheck to make the jump. In the mean time, she has found that blogging is a great way to get her feet wet. “It’s not exactly a great market right now,” noted Kara of the fashion industry. “I think blogging is a really great way just to get into it and to get yourself out there.”

For Sarah, blogging wasn’t even something she’d thought about until after her site had been up. But once she has the platform, she found that it wasn’t hard to write her own posts. “With my job I’m always looking for stuff, clothes and shoes and makeup,” explained Sarah, who uses those things as inspiration for what she writes.

For Martini Severin, blogger at beyondbostonchic.com, simply writing about fashion is what she loves. Martini started blogging when she noticed a lack representation of Boston fashion bloggers. “I was always interested in the arts, in photography and design and anything having to do with making things look pretty. Clothes and fashion seemed to be kind of an extension of that,” explained Martini, who works full time at a non-profit working on Child Development policy. 
“As a by product of that I started looking at a lot of the street style blogs, and just at blogs in general. I noticed that there weren’t that many in Boston. I thought, well you know Boston isn’t know for fashion however there are people who are quite stylish and doing quite wonderful things here. I wanted to be able to tap into that and capture the essence of the city.”

While Martini doesn’t utilize social media, she feels that being a blogger isn’t about hits or advertisements, but about having a conversation with other people on the internet.“ What you really want is to communicate with people and open a dialogue. I think I’m slowly building my community and really figuring out who my readers and what they’re about,” she explained. She feels her voice as a blogger is unique, and although it’s only her unpaid side job, she finds simple joy in thinking and writing about fashion. 
“It sounds really flippant, but it’s an interesting thing to think about what really shapes our society and to actively take time to notice how people are expressing themselves. I think normally I would just keep those things to myself, but because I’m a blogger, when something strikes me I can actually talk about it, I can open a discussion about it and see what people are thinking and feeling.”

(Don't mind my face here!)